


feliz

by kalesmay



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Christmas, Drinking, Gen, Psuedo-sibling relationships, father figure reaper, its just Jesse and sombra in that one Christmas comic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 10:22:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16830739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalesmay/pseuds/kalesmay
Summary: Sombra flips her two-tone hair, traces a nail across the rim of her glass. “Tell me a story about him.”





	feliz

**Author's Note:**

> hey i got into overwatch and have a million wips but i finished this first. based on the panel of the comic where they’re in the same bar for christmas, just two of gabe’s kids talking about their dad. twitter is @kungjins !

The bar is quiet. Anyone who hadn’t left when McCree strolled in sure as shit turned tail when Sombra did, and the bartender had flipped the sign to Closed not long after. The only sound is the clink of the single ice cube in his glass, and the staccato tapping of Sombra’s nails against the bar. 

She speaks first. 

“Was he always like this?” She stares at McCree with bright violet eyes, searching for something. 

There were so many things that  _ this  _ could mean, but only one  _ he.  _

Gabriel Reyes was a lot of things: grumpy, destructive, determined, protective, loyal, fatherly—

So McCree just says, “Yep,” because Gabriel Reyes is nothing if not consistent. Sombra’s mouth twitches, like she’s disappointed by the answer. It seems like a cop out, like Gabe should’ve been  _ different  _ before he was Reaper, like this new version of an old friend was something corrupted entirely. Things had changed, but the important stuff had stayed the same. He’s still Gabe. 

Sombra flips her two-tone hair, traces a nail across the rim of her glass. “Tell me a story about him.” Her eyes are sharp, like it’s a challenge of some kind. McCree cocks his head. “I know you have some,  _ cabrón _ . He tells them to me all the time.” 

And  _ damn _ if that doesn’t throw McCree for a loop. Sighing deeply, he removes his hat and runs his flesh hand through hair that’s in desperate need of a washing, and Sombra seizes the hat like she’s been waiting for him to take it off the whole night, placing it on her own head with a wrinkle of her nose at the sorry state of it. 

“A story,” McCree muses. “What kind?” 

As he lights a cigar, he mulls it over. He’s got years and years of stories about Reyes, but some of them hurt, and some of them are just for them. 

“Your favorite kind.” 

McCree can’t help but laugh, just a little. He had information she couldn’t hack, intelligence that her mainframe couldn’t find. His lungs fill with a long drag, exhaling a cloud of smoke that Sombra’s eyes watch hungrily. 

“My favorite kind, huh?” There’s so many favorites with Reyes, so many firsts, that McCree almost doesn’t know where to begin. Almost. He smiles his first genuine smile of the evening — Reaper was going to kill him. 

If McCree knew anything other than guns, it was how to tell a damn good story. Back in Deadlock, they had sat in Ashe’s living room, swapping stories and tall tales until they fell asleep sprawled on the couches. The pang of nostalgia almost surprises him.

“Have you ever seen him without that stupid mask?” He asks. (It is a stupid mask; leave it to Gabe to go for gothic dramatics).

Sombra shudders imperceptibly. “Not on purpose. It got broken in a fight, and his face… _ díos. _ ” McCree doesn’t ask; he doesn’t want to know what became of Gabe’s visage, already scarred and broad and weatherbeaten, but warm and handsome. 

So, he presses on. “Well, back when I was in Blackwatch, Gabe had all these scars on his face, real fucked up mug, and he’d always lie about where he got ‘em. He had this beanie, too, funny little hat. Gabe  _ never  _ took that damn thing off.” Sombra cocks her head, trying to calculate where he’s going with this. 

“Well, one day, me and some other agents felt like raisin’ a little hell—“ 

“ _ Idiota _ .”

“—hey! Okay, maybe. But I was young and even dumber than I am now.”

“That’s hard to believe.” Sombra arches her eyebrow, and McCree flicks the brim of her stolen hat, pointing his cigar accusingly. 

“You gonna let me tell this story, or do you wanna insult me some more?” 

Sombra mimes zipping her lips, and McCree takes a drag off his cigar and continues. 

“Like I was saying, we wanted to fuck with Reyes, and the whole base knew I was the only one that could get away with it. So, I stole his ugly little beanie. Lord have mercy, Gabe went  _ ballistic!  _ He tore up the entire base lookin’ for it, screamed at anyone who told him to get a new one, and someone swore up and down that she saw Gabe swing on Morrison over it. All over a doggone  _ hat.”  _

“Eventually, someone snitched and told him I had it, so he came bangin’ on my door like a tax collector, hemmin’ and hawin’ about his stupid beanie. I opened the door, and I told him I wasn’t givin’ it back until he told me how he  _ really  _ got all them scars.” He pauses to take a drink and a drag. 

Sombra leans forward. “And what did he say?” 

McCree can still see it in his head like it was yesterday, that gruffly fond scowl on Gabe’s face, the laugh when he realized he’d been beaten. “Reyes told me that when he first joined the army, after the super soldier program, he was still gettin’ used to his own strength, and apparently he leaned on a window and ended up falling face first through the damn thing, and it cut his face to ribbons. Commander Gabriel Reyes fell through a damn window. Let me tell you, I have never laughed so hard in my life. There’s your Reaper for you.” 

Sombra blinks at him, trying to figure out if he’s telling the truth, before bursting into a fit of giggles, clutching her chest with her hand. “ _ Díos mio, _ I can’t wait to tell  _ everyone.”  _ Gabe was gonna love that; McCree makes a mental note to go into hiding. 

“You got any stories for me,  _ hermana _ ?” McCree wheedles. Sombra arches her eyebrows, either at the name or the request, or maybe both. “C’mon, he can’t be all doom and gloom  _ all  _ the time.” 

She thinks about it for a moment, then her face splits into a chilling grin. “You know how he can turn into that—“ she flaps her hands through the air in front of her to represent the mass of black smoke Reaper dissipates into, and waits for him to nod in understanding before she continues, “Once I trapped him in a jar.” 

McCree freezes. He thinks he may have misheard her. “I beg your pardon?”

Sombra’s entire face is glowing with triumph, and it’s possible that McCree underestimated her. “You heard me,  _ vaquero _ . I waited until he became smoke, and I put him in a containment jar.” 

He can’t help it; he laughs so hard, he has to stop and catch his breath. Tears streaming down his face, he beats on his chest until he can breathe again, leaning back on his stool. “I’ll be damned. Was  _ not  _ expecting that.” Ana was bound to have a damn field day with that one. Sombra looks very proud of herself. McCres figures she’s got a bit of a right to. 

They spend the rest of the night shooting the shit, having shot contests and telling stories, McCree trying to reclaim his hat, to no avail. It’s a weird kind of camaraderie, a bond shared by two tipsy agents with a shared father figure, trying to figure out what that makes them. They both know that the next time they’re this close to each other, weapons will be involved. He tries not to dwell on it. McCree doesn’t think Sombra’s all that invested in Talon anyway; for her, it’s a means to an end, and hopefully she’ll be gone before McCree has to do anything about her. 

Half past 3, Sombra gets up to leave. “Well, McCree, it’s been fun, but I have work to do.” McCree, far too drunk to do more than lift his head from the rough wood bar, lifts two fingers in salute. 

“It was a pleasure, Miss Olivia.” 

It was a bit of a gamble, but it’s worth it when Sombra glares and walks to the door, still gripping his hat. He didn’t really think he’d be getting it back, anyway. “Merry Christmas, Joel.” And she’s gone. 

McCree laughs to himself, huffs of air under his breath. The bartender, lured from the back at Sombra’s departure, peers at him critically. Sombra hadn’t paid; Jesse was a member of Overwatch. Shit. Groaning, McCree pulls himself up, dropping a credit chip on the bar. The bartender takes it quickly, as if he’s not sure if McCree won’t try and take it back. Given his history, it’s a pretty fair fear. 

On wobbly legs, spurs jingling discordantly, McCree makes his way out of the bar, the crisp December air smacking him in the face with enough force to cause him to recoil. Sombra’s already long gone. Still smiling to himself, he ambles back to his hotel, where Tracer and a few other agents were going to meet him in the morning. It wasn’t coincidence that Sombra and him had been in the same place; just a pleasant side effect of the job. 

Already cursing the hangover he knew he was gonna have tomorrow, McCree shucks his boots and chaps and flops, boneless, onto the bed. He’s asleep within minutes.

•••

It’s quiet in the little Talon base, a hollowed out warehouse they filled with tech and weapons and a few cots to sleep on. Not that any of them slept, all that much. When Sombra slinks in, not as tipsy as she would’ve been before, Reaper is still awake, hunched over the shotguns as he methodically cleans them. He turns to face her, stupid mask eerie in the low light. 

“Where have you been?” His voice, guttural and low, is loud in the quiet of the room.  Amélie  is nowhere to be found. 

Sombra makes a face, sitting on the edge of a bed and pulling off her shoes. “A bar,  _ dad.”  _ Reaper grumbles at the title, but doesn’t dispute it. Funny. 

“Alone?” 

“I’m not that pathetic,  _ cabrón _ . I had a...friend.” 

Even behind his mask, Reaper manages to display suspicion with a cock of his head. “You? A friend?” 

Sombra nods, grinning widely. “Yes, and he told me the  _ most  _ wonderful story! He told me about a man who fell through a window and cried over a hat.” 

Reaper groans. “You were with  _ McCree?  _ Stupid fucking cowboy,” He slams his guns down on the surface of a table and points a finger at Sombra. “He’s full of shit! I’m going to kill him.” He decides. Sombra giggles. So it  _ was  _ true. 

“Touchy, Reaper?” 

“Go to bed, Sombra.

•••

McCree dodges a fan of shotgun fire, rolling behind a trash can to reload. He can sense Reaper getting closer. “Hey, Reaper!” He calls, locking Peacekeeper’s barrel back in place and turning on one knee. When Reaper gets close enough, he fires, emptying all six rounds into the undulating black smoke where Reaper’s corporeal form used to be. He curses. 

“Keep it up and I’ll lock your spooky ass in another jar!” 

The effect is instantaneous. Reaper becomes solid and throws his guns to the ground, roaring, “Sombra!” 

Sombra, locked in a fight with Genji that McCree isn’t very worried about, just laughs and spins out of the way of a volley of shuriken, winking at McCree. He tips his hat, which Sombra had started the fight with on top of her head, then stolen by Genji, now finally reclaimed by McCree. 

With Reaper distracted, McCree lands a bullet in the thigh and a solid right hook that hurts McCree’s knuckles more than it probably does Reaper, but Reaper disappears in a cloud of smoke, Sombra in a flurry of digitized pixels soon after. McCree leans against a wall, catching his breath. 

“That was fun.” McCree says with a bloody smile when Genji limps over to him, left knee short circuiting. Genji tilts his head in a way that manages to convey how  _ not  _ fun this was. 

“You certainly seemed to think so. When Reaper kills you, no one will be surprised.” 

McCree rolls his shoulders and pulls Genji in by the waist, pressing a smacking kiss to the side of his helmet. “Nah, Reaper won’t kill me. Evil maniac or no, it’s still Reyes.” Genji hums, but doesn’t comment. McCree doesn’t get too comfortable around Reaper, but he knows, somewhere deep in his gut, with the instincts that Reyes taught him so many years ago, he won’t die by Reaper’s hand. 

Reaper might hurt him, put him out of commission, but he won’t kill McCree; it’s a small solace, but Reaper’s had plenty of chances already and hasn’t taken any of them, choosing to retreat and regroup and leave McCree dazed and hopeful. Reyes is still in there, somewhere, under Talon and Mercy and everything else that created Reaper. 

Tracer zips over to the pair. “That was fun!”

Laughing and nudging Genji with his elbow, McCree says, “See, she gets it!”, ruffling Lena’s spiked hair. Lena ducks away with a token complaint, but laughs heartily and loops her arm through his. After Overwatch fell, after the Gabe Jesse had known died in that explosion, McCree hadn’t thought he’d know family again. Right now, with Genji leaning against his left side and Lena chattering to his right, he can almost forget the Reyes shaped hole in his life, the ache he gets for Blackwatch when he thinks about it too hard. 

“ _ Feliz navidad _ , y’all.”

Genji’s lights flash green and red, making Lena snort. “ _ Merii Kurisumasu _ .” 

“Happy holidays, loves. Let’s get back to base.” 

He has a family again, and he’ll be damned if he loses this one. 


End file.
